RELATED NEWS

Vietnam's traffic safety committee on Tuesday kicked off a one-year program, offering free taxi rides to drinkers at some restaurants in the central city of Da Nang.

The cab-booking company Grab Taxi will provide the services to customers of ten restaurants, which have been selected for the first stage of the initiative. The restaurants are responsible for booking the rides and for keeping their customers' vehicles and belongings safe.

Authorities said the project will soon be rolled out in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Drunk driving is a major cause of traffic accidents in Vietnam.

During the Lunar New Year festive season in February for instance, traffic crashes killed 317 people and injured 509 others, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee. Many of these cases were caused by drunk drivers.

Grab Taxi is an automated smartphone-based booking and dispatch platform for the taxi industry in Southeast Asia. It is available in major cities in Vietnam.